


Northern Lights

by juliasets



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean's Potty Mouth, Donna's sex cabin, First Time Wincest, Hiking, M/M, Minnesota is too cold, Misunderstandings, Season/Series 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 13:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliasets/pseuds/juliasets
Summary: Sure, Sam hadn't advertised it as a "trip to Donna's sex cabin", but how was Dean supposed to know his brother wanted to actually gohikinginMinnesotainDecember?





	Northern Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Well, fuck. I guess I gotta turn in my "only writes gen" card?
> 
> As of 7pm last night I was sure I wouldn't be submitting anything for Mixtape. I wrote this whole thing in a few hours last night (December 30th).
> 
> This was spawned from a hilarious conversation about the Winchester brothers' hiking proclivities between myself, [sweetheartdean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetheartdean) and [themegalosaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus). Some of the dialogue is totally ripped off from their brilliant minds.
> 
> It was read over by the above two and [artherra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artherra), but any mistakes are definitely mine.
> 
> The absolutely gorgeous, adorable art is by sweetheartdean (embedded at the end of the fic, or [check it out here](https://twitter.com/sweetheartdean/status/1079822041841307648)).
> 
> Takes place at some point before 14x09.

When Sam had asked if Dean packed ‘supplies’, he’d said yes. Because, you know, he thought he had.

Except when they get to Donna’s cabin and Sam starts pulling out headlamps and hand warmers and fucking  _ snowshoes  _ (when did Sam buy snowshoes?) he realizes that when Sam had asked him up to Donna’s cabin to go hiking, he actually meant  _ go hiking. _

It could almost be adorable. His giant nerd of a brother, getting excited about hiking.

Except Dean had had a very different idea of where this long weekend was heading.

So when Sam asks to see his gear, Dean clutches his duffel bag to his body and stammers out an explanation. That he hadn’t really expected the weather, so he wasn’t prepared. Sure, it made him sound like a total amateur—Dean once spent a whole year in Purgatory, thank you very much, he didn’t need survival tips from anybody—but it was better than Sam seeing what “supplies” Dean had brought.

Like the lube.

And the condoms.

And the candles, because Sam seems like a bit of a romantic, even if the candles are inscribed with magic runes.

And the handcuffs, because, well, Sam also seems like he might be kind of a freak in bed.

Dean is so screwed. And not in the way he’d been hoping.

 

* * *

 

Here’s the thing: Dean doesn’t really like to think of Donna’s cabin as a “sex cabin”. At least not when the last people who used it were his mom and an alternate universe version of his sort-of adoptive father. But, come on, he isn’t naïve. He knows that’s what they were getting up to. And if he kind of squints and looks at it sideways and doesn’t think about it too hard he can almost appreciate the utility. An isolated cabin, far from anyone else? They could be as loud as they wanted.

Except, you know, not  _ them _ , because that was still his mom and  _ Bobby _ and he already needs therapy for about a million other things. No reason to borrow mental trauma.

So when Sam suggested that they take a long weekend and head up there, just the two of them, what else was Dean supposed to think?

Sure, they hadn’t ever done…  _ that _ … before.

It had always been there, though. Unspoken. Un-acted-upon. Dean would be hard pressed to name when it had started. But they’d decided not to do anything about it. Not that they’d ever actually discussed it.

But with everything that had happened, with losing Sam in the other world and nearly losing him again to Lucifer and then Dean’s long weeks as Michael’s captive, something in him had snapped. Why were they denying themselves? What were they trying to prove? It wasn’t like any other part of their lives was average. They were helping their friend, an angel, raise the devil’s son in between hunting monsters. They weren’t ever going to have normal.

But maybe they could have something.

But what Dean definitely hadn’t counted on was that his freak of a brother liked the outdoors. Actually enjoyed hiking. So, yeah, maybe Dean should have realized what was going on and that ‘hiking’ wasn’t code for ‘finally boning’.

To his credit, though, who the hell wants to go hiking in the middle of winter in northern Minnesota? No one sane, that’s for sure.

For fuck’s sake, there’s already six inches of snow on the ground.

Which clearly doesn’t bother Sam, considering he brought  _ snowshoes_.

And now Dean is going to have to pretend like the reason he’d been so excited on the drive up was because he wanted to go traipsing around the woods in the snow and the cold.

Damn it.

 

* * *

 

“I packed some extra gear, so you should be fine. I don’t think we need the snowshoes. It’s only a couple inches.”

Dean bites down a ‘that’s what she said’ and takes the long underwear that Sam hands him. Of course, Sam brought it for himself, so Dean is going to be swimming in it. Fuckin’ great.

“Although, I don’t have another pair of boots, and yours aren’t exactly waterproof.” Sam’s giving his feet an assessing look.

Dean glances down at his boots. They’re fine. Dean’s hunted fuglies in every imaginable terrain in these things (or ones just like them). He’s never had a problem before.

Sam, of course, has a pair of thick hiking boots. And thick, woolen socks that literally say ‘REI’ on the side. Jesus Christ.

“You got some extra socks, Bear Grylls? I’ll just double up.”

Sam doesn’t look entirely convinced, but at least he stops fussing.

“It’s supposed to be overcast tonight, so I was thinking we’d stay in and try tomorrow. The forecast has it clearing up.”

“Tomorrow… night?” Dean asks skeptically. Hiking already sounded miserable, but hiking _at night_?

Sam gives him an innocent look that, unfortunately, looks entirely genuine. “To see the northern lights?”

Dean plasters on a grin. “Right,” he says, snapping. “The, uh, aurora, right?”

Sam grins and goes back to checking the gear.

It’s possible that Dean hadn’t been listening very closely when Sam described this trip. At least not after Sam mentioned ‘Donna’s cabin’.

“It’s crazy that she has a cabin in the best part of the state to see it, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees flatly. “Crazy.”

“You wanna grab the cooler and rest of the food out of the car?”

Happy for something to take his mind off his impending doom, Dean heads out to the car. The cooler is stuffed with beer and a little food, and they’ve got shopping bags full of the rest. At least Sam doesn’t seem to be planning to rough it the entire weekend.

As bad as the hiking will be, Donna’s cabin is pretty nice. Not like the hunting shacks their dad used to hole them up in. It’s a retro A-frame, with a big, stone fireplace in the center. The kitchen is fully equipped. There’s an open loft with a giant king sized bed that Dean stares at regretfully.

There’s even a hot tub outside.

Donna, you minx.

Dean starts unpacking the food and idly planning what they can have for dinner. Sam brought along plenty of rabbit food, but also ground beef and hamburger buns, so that seems like a safe option.

At the bottom of one of the bags is a whole apple pie.

Not that Dean would admit it on pain of death, but on occasion Sam is pretty great.

The sun’s already setting, so Dean starts cooking, realizing that if he waits for Sam to get hungry they might never eat. Sam’s busy doing something on his computer at the table.

“This place got WiFi?” Dean asks as he starts frying the patties.

Sam gives him a grin over the top of his laptop. “Yeah, can you believe it? Donna really went all out. I got a couple emails from some of the hunters.”

Dean frowns at that. Sam’s been working himself to the bone serving as command central for a couple dozen hunters. As much as he doesn’t want to go outside, what he really doesn’t want is to spend a weekend with Sam tethered to his computer as he puts out fires. Especially when half the time they’re more like embers than infernos.

He makes Sam put the computer away when dinner’s done. Well, he closes Sam’s laptop and sets the plate of food on top of it, which gets the message across.

“This is nice,”  Sam says, taking a long pull from his beer.

“Yeah, I can’t really remember the last time we did something like this.”

“Years,” Sam agrees. “At least.”

Dean finishes his beer and cracks open another. “So why now?”

Sam ducks his head, picks at the label on his bottle. “Just something you said, before Lucifer and everything. About taking a vacation. I kind of figured, if we wait until there’s nothing looming over us, it might never happen, you know? Now’s as good a time as any.”

Dean nods, because Sam’s not entirely wrong, but… “You know, I’m pretty sure I mentioned the beach when I said that.”

“Yeah, well, you can plan the next one, okay?”

 

* * *

 

Sam’s flagging by the time dinner ends, so even though there’s pie to be eaten Dean lets him head to bed.

Sam calls dibs on the actual bed. Dean ends up on the couch. Which isn’t that bad, he’s definitely slept on worse. The couch in Rufus’ cabin had been particularly horrendous, with springs poking into him everywhere. Dean knows that Sam’s back sometimes acts up, the downside of being eleven feet tall, so he doesn’t really mind.

But, still. It’s the principle of the thing. He didn't expect to be sleeping alone this weekend.

The next day they go on a short hike just before lunch. Sam wants to scope out the area to find the best places to see the aurora. Dean does his best to act like he’s not miserable.

The sun is out and the sky is a clear, brilliant blue above the trees. The snow is pristine, untouched white. The cabin is surrounded by towering pine trees. It’s like something out of a holiday card.

It’s also cold as balls.

“Too cold to snow anymore,” Sam says like that’s a good thing. The sun helps, but not enough. The long underwear keeps his core warm enough, but the skin on his face stings with cold. After a half hour of hiking he’s sweating under his thick, woolen hat and he considers stripping off a layer but knows that won’t feel good for long. His fingers are numb through his gloves, and he shoves them deep into his pockets to try and keep them warm.

Sam’s in his element, though. He’s just as bundled up, but he’s all rosy-cheeked and smiling, where Dean’s pretty sure his face is probably just red with exertion.

They stop every few minutes so Sam can assess whether they’ve found a good aurora-watching spot. He’s brought along a compass to better judge the view of the northern horizon. Dean shuffles from foot to foot—his toes have gone totally numb, if he loses one to frostbite he’s never going hiking again—as Sam debates tree cover versus elevation.

Sam takes pity on him after an hour and they head back to the cabin more directly. Lunch is sandwiches. Dean gets a fire started in the fireplace mostly to help dry out his socks.

Despite having WiFi the cabin doesn’t have a TV. But it does have a closet full of board games. Sam kicks his ass at Scrabble and Dean returns the favor with Yahtzee. They play a few games of cribbage. When Sam busts out a puzzle Dean begs off to make dinner. The pasta doesn’t really take that much thought, so he’s able to watch Sam deep in concentration as he searches for pieces to form the border.

“You see there’s a hot tub?” Dean asks while they’re eating later. Sam’s taken over the table with his puzzle so they sit in front of the fireplace.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Wish Mom had mentioned it. I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

“Who needs that?” Dean asks.

Sam makes a face, but focuses intently on his pasta.

 

* * *

 

Sam spends another couple hours at the puzzle before checking his computer and saying that the chances of an aurora tonight are “not too bad”.

Dean’s not exactly thrilled about hiking out in the dark for “not too bad”, but he puts on his (still damp) socks and follows Sam into the pitch black Minnesota night.

They’ve got headlamps to help guide their way and flashlights as backup. Dean spends the hike out to Sam’s chosen spot carefully watching the ground, so when they get there and he turns off his lamp and looks up he’s a little startled. The stars out here are something else, bright and busy like you never get within a hundred miles of people. Almost bright enough to see by, despite only a sliver of moon.

Sam must have been watching him because he says “It’s something else, right?”

Dean nods. “No northern lights, though.”

“We might have to wait a bit,” Sam says. There’s a crinkle and something is pressed into Dean’s hands. “Hand warmers.”

It’s quiet, in the middle of the woods. The only sound is the rustling of the wind through the pines. They point out constellations to each other, but they get in an argument about which ‘W’ is Cassiopeia.

After a little over an hour Sam calls it quits. Dean is relieved. His hand warmer is only dully tepid and his toes are frozen again. When Dean flicks his headlamp back on Sam’s face is so disappointed that he almost suggests hanging out for a little while longer, but self-preservation kicks in.

Winchester luck catches up with them on the way back. Dean’s numb feet catch on an indent in the ground and twists wrong as he goes down. Sam’s beside him in a second, hands all over him. “Dean! You okay? Did you hurt anything?”

Dean swats his hands away, more out of pride than anything else. “I’m fine. Help me up.” He raises his arm.

Sam tries to pull him up, but when Dean puts his weight on his ankle it buckles. He’s only saved from ending up right back in the snow by Sam’s reflexes.

“God damn it,” Dean hisses.

“Bad?”

“Pretty sure it’s just sprained.”

“Not much we can do about it here,” Sam says, hoisting Dean’s arm over his shoulders.

Another thing that Dean wouldn’t ever admit to on pain of torture is that sometimes it’s handy having a gargantuan sasquatch of a brother.

“Hey, Sammy, at least we don’t have to worry about icing it, right?”

They limp home, the worst three-legged race ever. Sam lays him down on the couch and heads off in search of the med kit.

“Is it in your bag?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” Dean replies, eyes closed as he tries to ignore the throbbing in his foot.

There’s a strangled sound from the side of the room and Dean remembers far too late why Sam shouldn’t look in his bag.

His eyes snap open. Sam stands from crouching next to the bag. His face is red.

Dean is, for once in his life, at loss for words.

“Planning on hitting up the locals?” Sam asks, voice tight with false levity.

Dean could go with it. Sam’s giving him the out. He could laugh it off, say that he’d been thinking of driving to the nearest townie bar to check out the prospects. When he’d realized that he’d totally misconstrued Sam’s plans for the weekend he’d buried all those thoughts right back where they’d been for years.

But Dean’s pushing forty. What’s the point of living that long if you don’t actually do any living?

“No.”

Sam’s face falls.

“When you suggested we come up here I thought it was going a different way.”

“So you thought…?”

“Yeah.”

Sam grins, but it’s a little twisted. “That explains why you were so gung-ho for hiking. I thought that was weird.”

Dean tries for a grin himself. “Yeah, about that…”

“And you thought, what? I’d raise the idea of casual brother fucking through some sort of elaborate hiking innuendo?”

Dean grimaces but defends himself. “I thought it was like Netflix and chill!”

“So this was supposed to be, what? Hike and incest?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “It’s a sex cabin, Sam, and everyone knows it.”

Sam pulls a face, probably remembering Mary and Bobby spending a few weeks holed up here. “That is not a thing.”

“There’s a hot tub.”

“Wow.”

Sam’s face, underneath being grossed out by Dean’s crass references to their mother’s sex life, is weirdly blank. Dean’s having a hard time getting a read on him and it’s definitely not the best time for his Sam-dar to fail. “Look, man, with everything that’s happened, I just… I thought we could drop the act. Have something good, you know?”

Sam marches off and Dean slumps against the couch cushions, certain that he’s just fucked everything up. But Sam reappears a moment later with the med kit. He hands Dean a couple of pain pills and sets about carefully removing Dean’s boot. It’s quiet and tense.

Dean focuses on the feeling of Sam’s long fingers deftly wrapping his ankle in an ace bandage.

Sam leaves for a moment and returns with a handful of ice wrapped in a kitchen towel. “You know the drill,” he says, handing it off to Dean.

Dean wants to say something, but Sam’s already retreating up to the bedroom in the loft. He flips off the lights as he goes and Dean’s left alone in the darkness.

 

* * *

 

Dean wakes late next morning. The sun is already up and shining through the large front windows. He has a blissful moment of ignorance before the memory of the previous night crashes down.

Aw, fuck.

There’s sound from the kitchen. Dean cranes his neck, but he can’t see past the fireplace. His ankle is feeling better, so he carefully levers himself up and hobbles to the bathroom.

When he’s finished he comes back to a plate of pancakes and bacon sitting on the coffee table. An open beer sits next to it. He’s just about to hunt Sam down and force a confrontation when Sam appears, carrying his own plate.

They take seats, purposefully distant on the big, sectional couch.

“Listen,” Dean starts at the same time that Sam says, “I was thinking.”

Dean gestures for Sam to go on.

Sam takes a drink of his beer, sets it down. “There’s no reason for me to be upset, right? It’s just a miscommunication. It happens.”

Dean forces a grin through the sour feeling in his stomach. “Yeah, Sammy.”

It wasn’t what Dean might have hoped for. But he went to bed last night wondering if he’d really fucked something up between them. A truce and a return to the status quo isn’t the worst outcome.

He’s sure the rest of him will agree someday.

 

* * *

 

Sam offers to drive them back, but Dean refuses to cut their vacation short. They spend the day quietly. Sam finishes the puzzle, aside from a few stray pieces that are nowhere to be found. So now they have a bunch of birds that they can eat their food on top of.

After that Sam boots up his computer and spends some time managing their team of hunters. Cas and Jack say ‘hi’. Mom and Bobby finished a salt and burn in Idaho.

Dean spends pretty much the whole day on the couch. He ices his ankle off and on. They run out of ice cubes from the tray so Sam breaks some icicles off the side of the cabin and wraps them up instead. Dean suggests that he could just stick his foot right in a snowbank instead.

Sam makes dinner, chicken breasts and green beans and potatoes. Dean can’t even force a joke about healthy food.

A few hours after the dishes are all cleaned up and drying in the sink Sam puts on his coat.

“Where are you going?” Dean asks.

“The aurora forecast is pretty good,” Sam says, focusing on zipping up his jacket like it needs every ounce of his attention.

“Oh yeah?” Dean asks, before hauling himself up.

Sam steps forward, hands out. “C’mon. I know you don’t want to go out there.”

“Not especially,” Dean admits. “But when else am I gonna see the northern lights?”

Sam gives him a face like he knows Dean’s mostly full of shit, but doesn’t fight him too hard. His ankle is already much better, in all honesty. He barely limps.

Sam takes pity on him, so they don’t hike all the way to the same spot as last night. Sam finds a space not too far from the cabin where the trees are mostly clear and they flip off their headlamps.

“Woah,” Dean breathes.

At first it looks like clouds, or maybe stray smoke from a campfire. But as their eyes adjust to the night it tinges green, waving across the sky. As they watch it solidifies and brightens into a brilliant yellow-green.

Dean glances over. Sam’s face is barely visible in the dark, but his expression is open, happy.

It might not have been the weekend Dean planned, but it’s not a total loss.

“Pretty cool, Sam,” Dean admits.

Sam looks at him with a grin before gazing back up at the sky. He shuffles a step closer and before Dean can turn to see what’s going on one of his hands is wrapped up in Sam’s.

It’s cold and their gloves are thick with insulation, so he can barely even feel it.

There is definitely no tingle that runs through him.

“You utter sap,” Dean breathes.

Sam huffs out a laugh before tugging on Dean’s hand. He steps close, filling Dean’s entire vision with Sam.

Dean smirks up at him. “Hey, you’re blocking the—”

The kiss cuts him off. Sam lets go of his hand in favor of pulling Dean’s face closer. Sam’s nose pokes at his cheek, the tip of it ice cold, but their breaths are warm against the frigid air. Dean wraps his arms around Sam’s shoulders in the same way that he’s done a million times before, except never like this.

Lights burst behind his eyelids. Sam breaks away and turns his head around. In the sky a swath of vivid purple flares into a vibrant red.

“Hey, Sam…”

“Yeah?”

“You think we can still see the lights from the hot tub?”

**Author's Note:**

> (They totally can see the aurora from the hot tub, but they don't notice.)


End file.
